Faith Ventures, Spring 2000: World Missions Course

World Missions Course Student Testimonies II

Anthony Edelen

I was born the younger of two children. I didn’t have any type of church background when I was young. Both of my parents did have a background in religion, but didn’t have a strong interest in spiritual matters. When I was six our family broke apart. For a while my sister and I lived with our father.

[Anthony Edelen]

Later, my life became so depressed, due to situations at school and at home, that I was placed into a psychiatric facility and given treatment there. One Sunday I went to church with my mother and there I had a blessed experience with Jesus. I felt a great burden lift from me, and my tears flowed freely. I realized then that I loved music and that Jesus gave me the gift of singing. My life became wrapped in God because most people didn’t have time for me. He was my true Friend.

I was returned to school in the third grade. I tried to make friends, but I was beat upon by the bad kids. I returned to live with my father in Denver.

A new friend of mine led me to the Baptist church. For a while I attended there until I learned about eternal hell fire. I didn’t believe that this was true. Later I went back to my mother. We were introduced to the Mormon faith. We were baptized into the church by immersion.

A turning point in my life occurred in junior high school. A student slammed my head into a water pipe and this severely injured my brain. The symptoms weren’t immediate, but the results were devastating. Eventually I was taken out of school, never to return. My health became so poor that I required medical attention twenty-four hours a day. My mother hired a man who claimed to be a nurse but in reality he was a child abuser. I suffered under his defilement for several months.

From that time on I moved from place to place, sometimes at home with my mother or father, sometimes in psychiatric care facilities or hospitals. I completed high school and got a two-year degree in junior college. I was living in a halfway house in Fort Collins when I met a friend named John. He later moved to a place called Eden Valley. He told me about his new home. I went through a lifestyle program there that really helped me to get better.

I left the whole mental health system and lived with my sister in Denver. Again I became very sick and moved around in and out of the mental health system. I was living with some friends of my mother when I moved to Eden Valley in the spring of 1999. It was there that I came to a new turning point of my life.

My mind started slowly clearing. I attended a series of evangelistic meetings and became baptized as a new child of Jesus. During the last several months I have enjoyed a special growth in my Savior and Friend. I have left behind me all the medications that I used to take. I now attend the World Missions Course at Eden Valley. I hope to be a missionary after I graduate. Jesus has done so much for me. My past is forever gone. I now have true happiness in Him. My favorite text in the Bible is, "The joy of the Lord is my strength." Nehemiah 8: 10.

Karen Keith

I really like the title of this magazine, Faith Ventures. It is a powerful reminder of the way in which God has led me to the World Missions Course at Eden Valley Institute. It has been a venture in faith to say the least. Hindsight, they say, is 20/20. As I peer back over the span of the past three-and-a-half years, I see clear evidences of God’s providential leading.

[Karen Keith]

I began work as a Medical Social Worker at a continuing care center in Michigan. What I witnessed there inevitably planted in my mind the first seeds of discontent with the modern medical world at large. Most residents were taking a minimum of ten to fifteen medications for various ailments and conditions that were generally lifestyle induced and related. The center’s food service made most greasy-spoon restaurants pale in comparison. I quickly came to the conclusion that the majority of the residents, transitional or otherwise, would likely be able to pack their bags and go home if they learned how to change their lifestyle for the better. If they were to receive natural therapies and if they placed food in their mouths that would heal instead of kill them, they would have no need for medical supervision.

Approximately a year-and-a-half later, I listened to a fascinating sermon given by Dr. Charles Thomas of the Banning massage school in Desert Hot Springs, California. I was so floored by the testimonies I heard that I thought, "Karen, you need to check this out!" I had begun a new job as a social worker for the area Agency on Aging. As I was reviewing a multiple sclerosis client’s chart, a brochure for Wildwood Lifestyle Center fell out. Curious, I glanced it over and decided to give my client a call. She described what the program entailed, and told me her testimony regarding the results of the natural remedies and treatments she had received there. She had barely been able to walk from the car to the front door when she began her program at Wildwood. After only two weeks she was able to walk trails! I hung up the phone and sat in total awe. Thus began my intense search for a program that would teach me how to give these treatments and receive these results.

I prayed for a year, sought out many lifestyle educational opportunities, and left my destination in the hands of my infinitely wise Father in heaven. I went to a friend’s house for vespers one Friday evening and bumped into a lady who had previously lived at Eden Valley. Upon first seeing her I intuitively thought, "She must be from one of those self-supporting institutions," because she was the only female in the room with a skirt on. So, I introduced myself and inquired about her background. I had quite a chat with her, and was impressed to call Eden Valley.

Though I had been in contact with five other lifestyle education programs, Eden Valley was the only one that seemed interested in keeping up regular contact. At first I wasn’t the least bit interested in attending the World Missions Course because it involved organic farming and a host of other classes I wasn’t interested in taking. Fortunately, God had other plans. To make a very long story short, God overcame huge financial barriers and walls that I had put up. The night before I planned to call Bob Pickle to say, "Sorry, I’m not coming," Julie, my friend, who now happens to be here taking the course, had a long heart-to-heart talk with me. So, the next day I called Bob and explained the only financial scenario I could come up with. I had prayed long and hard. I was convinced that if the Lord wanted me at Eden Valley, He would provide the ways and the means. God was so good! He gave me above and beyond what I asked for and what I thought I needed. Bob asked me, "Would you consider attending the entire course (all the classes, including those I wasn’t interested in taking) if I told you that the rest of the finances will be covered?" Well, it took several seconds for me to scrape my jaw off the floor in order to give him my affirmative answer. Praise the Lord for his leading and provision! It reinforced my belief in the promise of Isaiah 30:21, "Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left."

Donna Whitaker

I grew up in a small town in western Massachusetts not knowing a lot about God. Although my father never read the Bible, he believed in God and enjoyed going to church when he could. When I asked my mother if she believed in God, she’d say, "I can’t see Him or hear Him, so how can He be real." She sent me to Sunday School for moral reasons, which I am thankful for, because I wanted to believe in God as I seemed to feel that He loved me.

[Donna Whitaker]

After high school, jobs were hard to find. I felt I needed to get away from the turmoil at home, so I enlisted in the U. S. Air Force.

During this time I never went to church (except on rare occasions) which caused me to drift away from God. I never intended to make the Air Force a career, but I stuck with it for twenty years retiring in 1991.

Retirement from the military (for me as an "E-6") was like losing both family and job all at once! Eight months before my retirement I became stressed and worried about my situation (plus it was a great inconvenience being stationed in a civilian setting, hours away from an air force base). This was complicated by physiological problems and continued on after I moved to the Dayton, Ohio area near Wright Patterson AFB. Since I didn’t like taking drug medications, I started an interest in nutrition and alternative therapies.

A civilian job at the base didn’t work out for long, so I ended up at the unemployment office. There I met a fellow named "Zot." I discovered that he was a Christian who reached out to help people (like me). He really cared. One day I went over to Zot’s house just for a visit, and he invited me to stay for dinner. Tied up with emotion, I burst out in tears relating a recent troubling experience I had just been through to this sympathetic, kind man. He got out his Bible and read some passages of scripture to me. As I listened, a wonderful, warm feeling of peace grew inside of me. It was then that I knew I needed the Lord in my life. I diligently searched for and found a church. I was so thankful and joyful to be in His presence! Praise the Lord for His gracious, loving-kindness!

Eventually, I got a job working in a nursing home and hospital. There I found that most patients couldn’t get off their medications. Even some of my co-workers and friends were in the same boat. Having a sympathetic burden to help others with their health needs, I’d share my testimony of improved health with anyone interested in hearing it. Several months after completing a 24-hour Newstart Homestyle cooking course, I attended a natural remedies health seminar at Uchee Pines Institute. There I picked up a catalog which listed Eden Valley as a lifestyle center and educational institute. I sent for information on the Lifestyle Center and Institute. I had been thinking about quitting my job and going through a Bible doctrine and health educator’s program. My first choice had been Mission College of Evangelism in South Dakota, but I felt that their three-month evangelism class would be too deep for me. My friends told me they had heard some good things about Eden Valley. After checking, I noticed that Eden Valley’s Lifestyle Program is one of the least expensive around, so I decided to attend a session.

I wanted to go on a seven-day cleansing, raw juice fast. The program is very flexible, though well supervised, and they consented to let me do this. I was amazed that I wasn’t hungry at all, and was pleased that I easily gained back the needed weight I lost while on the fast (seven pounds). Coming from a background of accumulated health complications, I completed this excellent program reinforcing the idea of my need to continually pray for the Lord to provide me with the physical and spiritual energy for each hour of the day. Without His aid I am utterly helpless!

While in the Lifestyle Program I learned about the World Missions Course offered here. This course looked like the right option for me, offering a well balanced work study program, making it more affordable.

Eden Valley is a delightful place! Before, I’d only seen pictures of fourteen-foot tomato plants—here I saw them with my own eyes! I love the country and gardening, and this beautiful, peaceful valley is a gardener’s paradise. I know my family and friends would enjoy visiting this area and hopefully some day come to learn how to get well. Eden Valley even offers assisted retirement living.

At my baptism it was my desire to become a powerful prayer warrior and to be able to stand alone in the last days, which this quote illustrates: "The whole Bible is a manifestation of Christ, and the Saviour desired to fix the faith of His followers on the word. When His visible presence should be withdrawn, the word must be their source of power." Desire of Ages, pg. 390.

I want to know Jesus better and to put His Word in my heart and mind as He desires me to. Through Bible study and prayer I hope to accomplish this goal.

Someday I would like to become an accomplished Bible worker possibly teaching children and to do whatever else God has planned for me. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13.

As of this printing, Donna’s father is making plans to attend the next session of Eden Valley’s Lifestyle Program.